There are not a lot of films about growing up gay in Minnesota, so this one particularly caught my eye. It appears to be the one and only work of Keith Froelich, who dedicates the movie to the memory of his father, who died the year it came out. It is too bad he hasn't done more.
For all its flaws, and the surface beauty of his actors, Froelich gets "something" about growing up gay in Minnesota that is quite essential: being frozen out didn't just happen during the winter. It happened in smaller and larger towns throughout the state and the country. His usage of anti-gay language was not merely gratuitous--it was, if anything, tame. The hope of the city of Minneapolis, to which each of the young men goes, was a hope for many of us, and perhaps a place where our dreams of escape came true, and for many others a place of hardness and death. Froelich captures all of this beautifully.
Many have commented on the use of Black & White. In the case of Toilerers, it works to help capture a sense of desolation that is just not possible in color. To me, this choice mutes the beauty of the characters and at the same time enhances it. But it also destabilizes the sense of time setting in a way that was not particularly helpful, as I kept wondering if it was set in the 70s, or 80s, or perhaps early 90s (the film was made in 95).
(SPOILER) Philip's illness at the end was piercing, and connected in my mind to the beginning when Udo's Aunt was remembering all the "beautiful boys" who died in the war in Germany under Hitler. So many beautiful boys died of AIDS, and still continue to suffer. Was Philip one of them?
For all its flaws, and the surface beauty of his actors, Froelich gets "something" about growing up gay in Minnesota that is quite essential: being frozen out didn't just happen during the winter. It happened in smaller and larger towns throughout the state and the country. His usage of anti-gay language was not merely gratuitous--it was, if anything, tame. The hope of the city of Minneapolis, to which each of the young men goes, was a hope for many of us, and perhaps a place where our dreams of escape came true, and for many others a place of hardness and death. Froelich captures all of this beautifully.
Many have commented on the use of Black & White. In the case of Toilerers, it works to help capture a sense of desolation that is just not possible in color. To me, this choice mutes the beauty of the characters and at the same time enhances it. But it also destabilizes the sense of time setting in a way that was not particularly helpful, as I kept wondering if it was set in the 70s, or 80s, or perhaps early 90s (the film was made in 95).
(SPOILER) Philip's illness at the end was piercing, and connected in my mind to the beginning when Udo's Aunt was remembering all the "beautiful boys" who died in the war in Germany under Hitler. So many beautiful boys died of AIDS, and still continue to suffer. Was Philip one of them?